u/Big-Yesterday586

I'm down to one hen and looking for a new home for her. In the meantime, I put her carrier next to my bed, with her nest in it. So her nest is nearby, she's familiar with it, and she's sleeping next to me and not by herself at night. During the day, I'm keeping her with me at all times because it's very detrimental for them to be alone.

They sleep on a roost, ie a bar/branch off the ground, and just poop through the night while they're digesting. But her breed is fairly comfortable on the ground, cuddling with each other, so she's okay sleeping on top of her carrier. But she still poops constantly all night. Now, they usually move around a little at night, but she must have slept hard, because all but one poop was clustered around one small area. So, of course, 80% of her night poops landed in the toe of one sandal. 10% on the other one.

I thought I had put them far enough away when I crawled into bed! She must have got settled at the very edge with her butt hanging over!

Thankfully, they aren't fabric shoes. They're the kind I can hose off and then scrub.

TL;Dr I left my house shoes too close to the live end of a bird and woke up with my shoes full of poop.

I'm a huge fan of using people's arguments against them and I just had someone call my "belief" in being trans, a *religion*. So I immediately thought, wait, if they say it's a religion, hey, religions have protections under federal law. Let's go!

Now, I know absolutely jack all about such things and I assume others have far more knowledge about it.

What do you say? Is this feasible? Is it a way for us to fight back and protect ourselves and the trans kids that come after us?

Edited to add: sorry guys. I was only thinking about the US and how things work here.

I'll be building a look with darker contouring under red light than under blue light. (When my new vanity is done) Has anyone else done anything similar? I'm curious what worked and what didn't.

Similarly, has anyone experimented with transparent UV face paint or glow-in-the-dark face paint?

I'll be building a look with darker contouring under red light than under blue light. (When my new vanity is done) Has anyone else done anything similar? I'm curious what worked and what didn't.

Similarly, has anyone experimented with transparent UV face paint or glow-in-the-dark face paint?

40FtM. In the middle of 2nd puberty. My skin has gotten dramatically rougher, though I still have few wrinkles. My previous skin care routine was to do as little as possible. I rarely wore makeup. It was a dysphoria trigger.

But the further I get along in my transition, the more comfortable I am in my body, the more I want to play around with makeup. I know I need to start protecting my skin now that I can and have reason to.

I've dipped a toe into skin care, but honestly I'm overwhelmed. I have like six serums, a face spray, eye roller, gentle face cleansers, etc. I'm concerned that I'm going to overload my skin out of ignorance.

I don't mind going to an esthetician if that's the advice, but I suspect you do more than slather serums on and send people on their way.

I have very red skin, covered in very old & barely visible scars that are the same color as my skin, but are slightly concave. Heaaavy undereye bags that allergy meds barely help. I'm going through 2nd puberty in the male direction, but my breakouts are extremely mild. I only have a single pimple on my face currently.

What do I do? If it's a simple case of certain kinds of products to use, what do I look for?

What's the best way to protect my skin from makeup and the stress of makeup removal?

Is there anything that actually works for under-eye bags?

Do I need to find an esthetician? What would that even look like? Lol I don't really know what y'all do to be honest.

Thank you for your time and patience

I want to state up front that my knowledge and experience with the stage is extremely limited. Dumb it down as far as you think I need. Lol.

For context, I've always had an intense fear of being Seen. Unfortunately, I learned early in life that fear is something you have to move through, not run from. So. The further I get in healing, the more I'm mentally crafting a performance. I may never do it. I may not need to, but for now, I'm exploring it. I'm going to be experimenting with the makeup I have and how it shows up under different light.

The general idea is to have makeup & clothes that shows up differently under different lighting.

The obvious lighting is natural, red, and blue. I'm realizing I can use translucent UV face paint and possibly glow-in-the-dark face paint. That would be five looks. That may be all I need.

1. Is it difficult to get enough blacklight to light up a small section of a stage?

2. Is there any other kind of lighting like that? I noticed that I've never heard or seen of Green lighting, though it looks like the stage lights I can find on Amazon have green LEDs. I'm aware there's something different about how our eyes register green, but I know nothing else. Mainly I would like to know if Green light is another light I can use like red and blue and if there's any others.

3. I suspect stage light might be different in some way from household or LED strip lights. (I do understand the basics of things like Kelvin/light color and lumens, so you don't have to explain those.) Is there a significant difference in stage lights vs house or led strip lights? Especially when it comes to the different colors, not just natural light.

Thank you for your time.

I keep seeing TSD spoken of as if it's a Bible and I just saw someone state that alters can't be individual people. I'm seeing the red flags, so I'm wondering what the community says. I've been tempted to push back but it doesn't seem like anyone is doing that or willing so I'm guessing any attempt would be wasted.

Update: basically, yeah. I left that sub reddit. Thank you all for filling me in!

Plural = more than one entity in one body. We identify as individual people and are diagnosed with DID.

Yay me /s

The basics:

Plural = more than one entity in one body. In our case, we identify as individual people due to our extreme differences and separation. We are diagnosed with DID.

Obese and Anorexic = apparently this can happen under significant, but not extreme food intake restrictions for Long periods of time. In my case, it took 20 years. Anorexia is characterized by distressing and debilitating thought patterns and unhealthy relationships and behaviors regarding food, not a BMI.

Trans man = started off with a female body, transitioning to a male body and socially a man.

I'm alone all day cuz my roommate is working a double. Currently waiting for my birds to wind down so I can get them settled onto their roost. I'm thinking about restricting my screen usage to only keeping a few people company. That might happen anyways now that my energy has been improving, but I suspect I have a bit of a dependency or addiction. That's probably the most boring part of my life.

People tend to be the most interested in my identity as plural, with DID. but you can also ask about my experience as a trans man, obese with Atypical Anorexia, C-PTSD, being a military brat, having ADHD, had a colonoscopy yesterday, declared recovered from osteopenia early this year, knowing way too much about the medical field and psychology, uh, idk. I'm a guy, but going to be starting ballet soon.

Kinda stuck in my head right now. Comment "hi" and I'll ask you a question.

I'm obese. All my doctors have brought up weight loss to me, even my general doctor, though she stopped now. However, I knew I had some kind of restrictive eating disorder in my early 20s that I'm still terrified of, so I got an ED therapist. The plan was to get help losing weight safely. I assumed I needed help restricting my food intake safely.

Well.

We realized I had only recovered up to eating 1,000-1,500 calories a day. Very very rarely do I eat any more than that. Maybe 2,500 from our estimations. (I called that a binge and got corrected) That was maybe on holidays, so less than a couple times a year. That and the kinds of thoughts I have about food and my body resulted in being diagnosed with Atypical Anorexia.

I'm an obese anorexic. I didn't think that was possible.

Being diagnosed with active, ongoing Anorexia scared the hell out of me. It nearly killed me in my 20s. I immediately started eating more. I scheduled an appointment with my doctor to check for anything that could have caused the slow weight gain. When I told her why I was there, she immediately said that my weight gain was due to the ED. Then she told me that's what the ED does. It suppresses the metabolism and the body clings to everything it can get.

Now, I'm developing a better understanding of what restriction does to the body, especially long term, since this has been going on for two decades. Raising my food intake has increased my energy but I think I keep slipping back to levels that I'm more comfortable with and my energy tanks with it. The part that I keep obsessing over, is that despite my therapist warning me that I could still gain weight, I only gain it when I don't eat enough. My weight drops when I eat more.

I understand that's how it works. How it actually works and not how our diet obsessed culture says it does. When you're starving, the body hoards energy to stave off starvation. When you eat well, the body is comfortable burning off the extra. I'm apparently fat because of Anorexia, not despite it.

That's just, completely against what everyone else believes. Any time I try to talk about it, I get people that completely refuse to accept that's how it is. That's what the current science says. I'm diagnosed. I've been checked for binging. I've been checked for metabolic disorders. It's not the DID, because food isn't going missing. Neither is money. I'm even having to stretch my stomach so that I can eat more at a time because I fill up too fast.

I'm still obese. The only thing I can hope for now is if I can be consistent enough, maybe my body will be comfortable with burning off some of the extra. Maybe there's something else I haven't learned yet. But clearly the current cultural beliefs about it are not just wrong but wildly wrong.

I've had so many people argue with me about it. I knew it would happen. I don't mind being an advocate. I just didn't think it would be that bad y'know? I'm afraid to search for past posts about it. I assume people are just as ugly with others as they have been with me.

I'm not just facing my own brain with this, but I'm also facing the people that have something invested in believing in the diet culture. It sucks. It doesn't help that my fight or flight instinct defaults to fight, so I'm going to end up posting more about it instead of going invisible. Yay me/s

I'm going to go visit them next month and I have had a lot more changes on T than I expected to have already. So I didn't want to have to try to lie during the visit.

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I have always had an issue with voice calls so I messaged them. They both immediately said "I love you."

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They're the only family that has stuck with me and I was feeling like I was constantly testing them with my shit. So this just felt like one more reason for them to be done with me.

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I'm relieved and happy, but also just sad that I felt that way to begin with. Their love has never been conditional, but I've felt like it should be.

A little background: I knew I had some kind of eating disorder in my 20s because it almost killed me. I thought I had recovered from it on my own. Especially since I kept gaining weight.

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My weight got to the point I was getting pressure to do something about it, but I'm terrified of my ED, so I got a therapist that specializes in it.

​

Only to find out I had never recovered *enough*. My therapist said that my weight is likely because of my active Anorexia. Ive been struggling with that. I scheduled a doctor's appointment to see if there was anything I needed to be checked for and the first thing out of my doctor's mouth was "no, it's the eating disorder."

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I wasn't expecting that.

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Ama. It helps me process things.

I love being at LGBT events. I like seeing people like me. But it makes me sad that I don't get the same for Plurality. I'd love to see booths of systems with art from different headmates, or anything really. Music by systems. Books by us and for us.

Plurality is so much more common than being trans, so it's so sad we don't get something similar

To be clear, I'm not a medical professional. I've not even had a single class related to medicine. However, it's something I had to learn because my health is complex and I've been too poor. Unfortunately, I've correctly self-diagnosed 11/13 of my health issues. AND I've had plenty of wrong guesses. Take this with a grain of salt.

About three years ago, when I woke up from surgery, the first words out of my mouth were "it's so easy to breathe." And it was. There was barely any resistance.

Yet, in the days and weeks after, my anxiety got worse. At the time, I assumed it was because my situation was bad. My whole life was going up in flames. It was a reasonable assumption.

Then I stumbled on an article about a physiological cycle, a feedback loop, called the Dyspnea-anxiety cycle, and I made a few connections.

First, the Dyspnea-anxiety cycle is a nasty feedback loop where shortness of breath causes anxiety and that anxiety causes rapid or shallow breathing.

It made me wonder, am I breathing shallowly? Did the tight gear I've worn all my life help me breathe out? Did it compress my chest so that I didn't have to? Do I have the muscles and neuro-wiring to do it myself now? Or is that why my anxiety has gotten so bad?

Now, I've had six years of training on a musical instrument and three years of training as a swimmer, so breath control is very familiar. That was also two decades ago.

I remember laying in bed, taking in a deep breath, letting it out, then trying to breathe out more, and nothing happening.

I had to use my hands to compress my chest down to breathe out any further. I had to clench my abs to try to compress my diaphragm.

All I can figure, is that my chest gear was so tight that I didn't have to engage muscles to breathe out, I could just relax and let the gear compress my chest.

For months I had to practice compressing my chest with my hands and other muscles to build the muscles and neuro-wiring. Even now, two years later, I caught myself not breathing out, my chest was fully expanded, breastbone actually angled away from my body instead of being flat. I have to bring my shoulders into the motion of breathing all the way out still.

About half a year ago, I got partial confirmation of this when I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, specifically hypopnoea. I wasn't snoring or choking in my sleep. I was breathing so shallowly that my blood oxygen levels were dropping too low, causing me to wake up just enough to catch my breath. I was having 19 events every hour. I'm on CPAP now.

As for my anxiety, today is the last day of a week where I've been completely isolated, something that triggered severe flashbacks and dissociative events leading up to it. The first couple of days were extremely difficult.

Yet, I've only had to take my anxiety meds three times.

Everyone tells you to breathe in.

Well.

Make sure you can breathe out too.

Edited to fix some formatting.

I'm in the medical gore community, which I absolutely love. It's a great place to learn about the human body and diseases. Unfortunately, the current trend is botched gender affirming surgeries. You would think that would discourage thoughts about doing it myself, but instead it's making it worse for me. I'm not a medical professional, just someone that's curious, so it's 200% out of the question, but that's not stopping the thoughts. Because of the situation in the States, I don't know if I'll ever be able to get the surgery I need and the despair from that can get to be a bit heavy. I was just curious if others were having similar awful thoughts?

I had been taking emotional and psychological damage to shield everyone else, for so long.

Lately, I keep feeling strange with myself, because damn am I *fighty*. I don't see myself as confrontational, but clearly, I am.

It took being thrown into flashbacks for me to realize that's how I *was* before I got so worn down all I could do was just take the damage.

So, I guess I'm having a small celebration in rediscovering myself.

-Pine